Nicky Morgan, the former cabinet minister, has won the contest to chair parliament’s influential Treasury select committee, beating the arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg to position herself as a thorn in the side of the government’s plans for leaving the EU.

A Conservative battle is underway for the chairmanship of parliament’s powerful Treasury committee, with Jacob Rees-Mogg, the rightwing arch-Brexiter, pitted against Nicky Morgan, the leader of the fight for a soft Brexit.

The government has said it is dropping the education bill unveiled in this year’s Queen’s speech, abandoning several proposals that had proved to be unpopular. However, it said it would press ahead with plans for more grammar schools.

The government’s plan to create new grammar schools risks distracting from education reforms and could undermine progress in improving schools, the former education secretary Nicky Morgan has told the Conservative conference.